


Come on, it’ll be fun

by nottinghamroad



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Explicit tag to be earned later, Fluff, Law School AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-21 21:43:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14923368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nottinghamroad/pseuds/nottinghamroad
Summary: Matt and Foggy are short on cash leading up to taking the bar exam. Foggy sees an ad for a well paid romantic couple’s study. Our boys have always fancied themselves good actors. Do I need to spell the rest out for you?





	1. Advertisement

**Author's Note:**

> Look, we all need some fluff in our lives, folks. Life is hard and if you can’t have another forced relationship AU in your life, I don’t know what to tell ya!

Foggy goggled at the notice on the board. 

"Matty, are you seeing this?" He looked over at Matt, who was absorbed in their property law paper. 

"Not seeing much of anything these days, Fogs," Matt grinned in Foggy's general direction and Foggy rolled his eyes. 

"Sorry dude." 

"You're rolling your eyes, aren't you." 

"How do you always know?" Foggy ripped the notice down from the board and brought it over to the table where Matt was sitting in the Columbia law library. 

"I'm psychic and shit, you know that." Matt took a break from typing on his Braille keyboard. Foggy always liked to watch him at it. That may have had something to do with the nimbleness of Matt's long fingers touching the keyboard lightly but with great intention, and how Foggy, well, he liked to see his best friend excelling in their legal studies. That was definitely it. 

"Anyways," Foggy interrupted his own train of thought. "I found a solution to our rent problem." 

"Other than you working extra delivery hours and me trying to find somewhere that will hire a blind guy to make coffee?" 

"Those chumps over at the Castle have no idea what they are doing if they never let you even make them a test latte," Foggy said dismissively, referring to a well-loved student establishment that had turned Matt away for a job despite his extremely capable espresso-pulling skills. 

"Your faith in me is touching as always, buddy." Matt put a hand to his heart in what Foggy hoped was only slightly mock appreciation. 

"Someone in the Psych department over at Columbia is running a long-term romantic couples study that would more than cover the cost of our rent for the next six months, plus a little extra to put away for later." The words all fell out of Foggy's mouth rather faster than he was intending, but at least they were out there now. Hopefully they sounded as casual as they did in his head. 

"What, are you going to kick me out and bring Marcie along with you?" Matt steepled his fingers under his chin and gave Foggy a shit-eating grin. 

"If you kept any track at all of my sordid personal life, you would know that we hate Marcie now because she cheated on me with that slut from the Columbia undergrad football team named Chad!" Foggy chastised his friend. "And you would know that I should have known not to trust a douchebag named 'Chad' that she was supposedly tutoring for extra cash." 

"'Fraid that one was coming right at you, Fogs," Matt's voice was a little more sympathetic this time. "So, are you asking me out, then?" 

"More like offering you that acting job you've always dreamed of," Foggy deflected, because this wouldn't have even remotely been the context in which he would have liked to ask Matt out. 

"So, we attend the study together for six months, put on a good show, and neither of us has to do extra work leading up to the bar exam?" Matt clapped his hands together. "That sounds like a hell yeah to me, buddy."

"Great," Foggy kept his voice as measured as he could, but his chest was swelling happily. Matt resumed working on his paper.


	2. Details, details

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt wonders about some of the finer points of the study.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapters for the time being!

Matt was absorbed in the latest Deaver novel when something occurred to him. He wrenched his attention away from the book briefly and sat up on the couch in his and Foggy's apartment. 

"Did the flyer say how long the relationship had to be established for the study?" He called over the back of the couch, not sure where Foggy was. There was no answer, so he marked his spot in the book, and rose from the couch to look for Foggy. 

Water was running upstairs in the loft. They had a smaller, nook-like bedroom on the main floor that Foggy insisted he wanted, but only one shower, so Matt was frequently awoken by Foggy's padding footsteps coming up to the loft to use the shower. 

"Fogs?" Matt opened the door to the bathroom, figuring now was as good a time as any to get rid of the stubble that had been bothering him all morning. He entered to Foggy stopping abruptly in the middle of what sounded vaguely like a monologue.

"You couldn't have come in after I finished Burr's rap solo?" 

"I told you, dude, we are never going to get tickets to Hamilton. Give it up." But Matt was smiling as he felt around for his razor. "Did that couples study say anything about how long potential study subjects had to be together?"

"Six months," answered Foggy. "But that will be easy enough. I've thought it all through. You and I have known each other through pretty much all of law school, but it was only at the beginning of this year that you finally got your shit together, asked me out to dinner, and gave me a bunch of lavender roses to say you were enchanted with me. Either that or some big romantic moment after we won a particularly difficult mock case together, or both. We've been together ever since, happiest couple on the block, hashtag couple goals, et cetera." 

Matt was impressed with the ease at which Foggy rattled these things off. He was also impressed at the ease with which his stomach performed a neat backflip the more detailed Foggy's plan became. But that particular feeling would have to wait for the time being. 

"Great, well, it sounds like you've got this all worked out!" Matt finished shaving and put the razor away right as Foggy turned off the shower and stepped out. 

"Shit, Matt!" Foggy yelped. "I thought the drawer closing was the door closing!" A rustle from Matt's left side told him that Foggy had hastily grabbed a towel to wrap around himself. 

"Hey, it's not like I'm stealing away your innocence, Fogs," Matt grinned, gesturing to his unseeing eyes. He stayed in the bathroom for a beat longer than was strictly necessary, enjoying the smell of Foggy's clean skin and the scent of his pine shampoo and conditioner.


	3. First Session

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Foggy prepare for and have their first session in the romantic couple’s study.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I expect I will establish a more regular posting schedule, but I’m traveling at the moment and wifi is intermittent. 
> 
> Comments are the fic writer’s bread and butter. Let me know what you think if you so desire! Thanks for reading!

Foggy straightened his tie unnecessarily as he waited for Matt to come down from the loft. 

"Are you still putting on foundation?" Foggy yelled up the stairs. "I told you, your skin is perfect!" Matt's laughter floated down to him and Foggy did his best to ignore the light and sort of wiggly feeling it gave him. Eventually, Foggy heard Matt's deliberate footsteps making their way down the stairs. 

"Are you wearing that purple tie?" Matt actually sniffed in his direction. Foggy was slightly offended at the obvious disdain, he loved that tie. "It's the one that smells slightly of mustard and mothballs," Matt went on, clarifying how he knew which tie it was, though Foggy hadn't asked.

"Ready for the first day of the study, sweet prince?" Foggy made a show out of bowing and extending a hand to Matt, narrating his actions for full effect. 

"Always ready for a work-free rent payment." Matt extended his hand, and without thinking about it, Foggy brushed his lips against the back of Matt's hand and tucked his best friend's arm in his. 

"I can use my cane," Matt pointed out mildly, but he didn't move to make from Foggy's grip.

"They'll think it's adorable," Foggy said, waving his hand airily. "Cutest Couple of the Century walks into their study, the handsome leading the blind? God. We are going to be their favorite subjects already, I am so good at this." 

They walked down the street in silence for a few minutes. Matt had a look about him that he sometimes got while walking in New York City--as if he were memorizing every sensory detail he could take in, creating some kind of map of the city in his head. Foggy had been the beneficiary of Matt's impeccable mental map on more than one occasion. 

"Coffee?" Foggy asked. They were passing a local coffee shop that they both loved, Frank's.

"As long as it's not Castle's," Matt said with an overdone fake disappointment in his voice. Foggy seized this opportunity to robustly abuse what were certainly absurd and morally questionable hiring practices of that godforsaken coffee shop until they had nearly reached the front of the line. He put a hand on Matt's arm right before it was their turn, absently stroking a thumb up and down Matt's biceps to get his attention. 

"What do you want, Matty?" He looked over at Matt, who opened his mouth and then closed it, apparently reconsidering his answer. 

"Vanilla latte, please. Thanks Fogs." Matt patiently allowed himself to be placed just to the side of the cash registers while Foggy ordered. 

 

"What was the flavor of latte again for your boyfriend?" The barista made brief eye contact with Foggy, clearly annoyed either that she had to ask or that she couldn't remember.

"Oh he's not--" Foggy looked over at Matt for a brief moment. Matt didn't appear to be paying attention, his head was turned towards the exit of the shop as though he had heard something. Or, thought Foggy, he had turned his head that way on purpose because he knew it outlined his strong jaw beautifully and that it always turned heads, whether he could see them or not. He turned back to the barista, swallowing harder than perhaps was strictly necessary. 

"It was vanilla," Foggy confirmed. 

___________________

"Well, I mean I think the first time I really knew Foggy was the one was when we decided to become roommates during law school," Matt was saying. He heard the interviewer chuckle slightly. 

"Finally had him in your clutches, huh?" She teased, the scratching of her pen pausing for a moment. 

"It was less that," Matt said thoughtfully. "I just knew, I--" he trailed off for a moment, chewing the inside of his cheeks and thinking back to the day he and Foggy had first started to be roommates. "Foggy is this brilliant self-contained sun. He lights things up anywhere he goes, I always knew that. But when we moved in together, it was a like my whole flat was suddenly full of blinding sunlight and warmth, like a permanent state of one of those days where everything just feels right." He finished to a slightly quieter silence than before. It sounded as though both Foggy and the interviewer had their breath caught in their throats. 

Matt replayed what he had just said and mentally kicked himself. That had been too much. Foggy knew that he, Matt, regarded him highly and had even heard a version of the 'sun' metaphor from Matt before. But he'd never heard the last bit from Matt before, and it was for this particular over share that Matt was absolutely kicking himself. They were still supposed to be a new couple for the sake of this study, so it would be fine if he didn't explain further, right? Or, he considered, he could always make a real effort this time and launch himself directly into the sun. That would have certainly been the more direct route, Matt figured. 

But Foggy didn't seem to have been ruffled by this story at all. He spoke animatedly to the interviewer, and took Matt's hand in his when he paused briefly in his retelling of the first few days when they were roommates. Matt zeroed in on the sensation of his bony hands in Foggy's soft, protective ones, and wondered if it had been an unconscious action. 

"What are the holidays like?" The interviewer finished what sounded like a sentence on her clipboard, judging by the finality with which she made a dot on the paper. The sound very nearly echoed through Matt's mind. 

"Haven't had any yet," he said vaguely. "We've only been together six months." 

"But we'll be going to my family's for the holidays, obviously," Foggy was speaking in that wink-wink-nudge-nudge voice he used when he was trying (usually successfully) to charm someone, and he actually nudged Matt in the ribs. 

"Aw, come on, not even a consideration for my family?" Matt attempted to play along with what he was sensing was supposed to be a bit of playful banter, something for show. 

"Little Orphan Matty likes to joke around with me," Foggy informed the interviewer. "Tries to get me all guilty that he's such a sad little orphan and then convinces me to take us both out to dinner or something." Matt felt himself being taken into a gentle headlock by Foggy, evidently as evidence that they had that sort of joking relationship. Foggy appeared to have thought better of it, and planted a kiss on Matt's temple while releasing the headlock. 

"That's all we've got for time today," the interviewer was saying, a smile in her voice. She was telling Foggy something about the next time they were going to meet, and Matt vaguely recalled something about birthdays. He wasn't focusing on what the interviewer was saying. Foggy's lips making contact with his temple had sent a small shower of sparks down his spine, and he was savoring the feeling of each one as it traveled down his spine and fizzled out.


	4. Summer Shandy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boyfriend. The word came floating back to the front of his mind. He-his own internal monologue had just referred to Matthew Murdock as his boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Paso a paso, amigos. Paso a paso. 
> 
> Thank you for being so encouraging and kind. Fluff basically counts as self care these days, ok???

"I'm just glad she didn't go for the 'what side of the bed do each of you sleep on' question," Matt was opening the door to the main floor restroom. 

"You afraid I was gonna steal your favorite part of the bed, Mattykins?" Foggy popped the lids off of two Summer Shandy bottles, expertly catching them before they hit the ground. God, he thought to himself, sometimes it sucked to have a blind boyfriend, they could never see when you did sweet moves like that one. He deposited the bottle caps in their collection box and poured the Shandys into pint glasses. 

Boyfriend. The word came floating back to the front of his mind. He-his own internal monologue had just referred to Matthew Murdock as his boyfriend. 

Never mind, he told himself. Foggy was merely adjusting into the role he was set to play for the length of this study. It was not a big deal if he called Matt his boyfriend, that was what they were supposed to be, after all. Yeah. It was no big deal. 

"Thanks," Matt's voice was suddenly much closer than Foggy expected, snapping him out of his reverie. His best friend was standing behind him, reaching around him for the now-full pint glass. Reaching around him, bringing with him the smell of his body wash, something Foggy couldn’t quite place but was still slightly dazed by. 

"Plenty of room in this kitchen, Murdock!" Foggy meant for the phrase to come out it more joking, but instead he snapped it and immediately regretted it. Matt had what looked like a smug grin on his face as he retrieved his pint glass and felt his way over to the couch where his stack of books were waiting. Look, Foggy might have been mightily fooling himself, but something in him was damn sure that Matt knew standing that close would release his hot breath into direct contact with Foggy's neck, which would make the hairs there stand on end, which would leave Foggy completely distracted for a moment. He shook it off and joined his friend on the couch with his own glass. 

"What are your thoughts on that Edgecome Case, Sir Nelson?" Matt took a sip from his pint glass before turning sideways on the couch and stretching out his legs. His toes brushed against Foggy's thighs all the way at the other end of their extra-long foldout. 

"Open and shut," Foggy answered, watching Matt's toes brushing up and down his thigh, seemingly without any thought given to the action by Matt himself. With a Herculean effort, he pushed his attention towards their latest focus in criminal law. The pair argued animatedly about the case for what felt like a few hours, making their way through a sizable chunk of Foggy's latest beer stash. 

"You are buying the next stash," Foggy told Matt, pointing at him with a bottle in hand and sloshing it around slightly. 

"Hey, it's not my fault crim can get depressing enough to drink yourself into oblivion." Matt drained the last of his latest bottle. 

"No no! It's not depressing, no no no no no," Foggy immediately sat up straighter and placed his beer on the coffee table with more force than was necessary, so more of it slopped out. "It's practice, Matty. Practice." He stared earnestly at his friend, his mind hazy from the drink but still insistent on what he was trying to get across. 

"If this is practice, Fogs, I don't always know if I want to get to the real thing." Matt's legs were stretched out across the couch again, this time his feet were pressed unabashedly against Foggy's thigh. Foggy turned to face Matt and put Matt's feet in his lap to accommodate him taking up more space. 

"Practice for Nelson and Murdock, man! The heroes of the small man! The stander-dogs for the underuppers! Or....or....well, something like that." Foggy trailed off and looked down at his hands, surprised to see that he had taken one of Matt's feet into his hands and begun massaging the arch with his thumbs. 

"Stander-dogs for the....what..." Matt couldn't finish his sentence, as he had dissolved into helpless peels of laughter at Foggy's drunken attempts to string words together. Foggy dug his fingers into Matt's arch a little harder to get his attention back. 

"You know what I meant," he said reproachfully, though he was smiling too. 

"You are relentlessly optimistic, are you aware of that, Mister Franklin Nelson?" Matt's voice had lost its mirth suddenly, and he was speaking very steadily. Foggy flushed, grateful now that Matt couldn't see. 

"I do try, Sir Matthew," he responded, carrying on again with his foot massage. Matt seemed to rise to the touch, his shoulders sinking deeper into the couch out of relaxation. Silence fell for a few moments, but it was broken by a low, rumbling sound from Matt. It sounded--well, maybe it was that Foggy was drunk and he couldn't really tell what sounded like what, but it sounded almost like a purr.


	5. There has to be a reason!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They will need a story,” Karen informed him sternly. “They need to know when the two of you finally decided you were in love after all this time, after being roommates for so long. And it can’t be that you got drunk and made mistakes and then those mistakes turned out to be love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment if you are enjoying yourself & if you feel so inclined! This fic is chugging along nicely, especially since my rewatch of daredevil is reminding me HOW SAD SEASON 2 WAS DEAR GOD KILL ME NOW. Ok bye.

Matt awoke the next morning to the feeling of something warm and heavy on top of his midsection. He felt around and froze when he realized it was Foggy's arm. His best friend gave a hearty snore behind him. 

"The fuck just....happened..." Matt breathed, trying to take stock of the situation. Okay. He had ended up in bed with Foggy after their long night of work last night. Or....Foggy had ended up in bed with him? Had something happened? Matt took a few steadying breaths. This wouldn’t have—Foggy wouldn’t have—of course, it wasn’t that he, Matt, didn’t want....well, that....but not like this, he sure as hell did not want it like this. Not when he couldn’t remember. He took another deep breath and did his damndest to slide out from under Foggy’s arm without disturbing his best friend’s sleep. 

Matt showered and began feeling his way around the kitchen for breakfast cereal. 

“Matty?” Foggy called down the stairs. “Matty.” He sounded still, well, foggy with sleep and Matt wanted to answer him and wanted to sound normal while doing it, but he couldn’t, he just couldn’t, not with the feeling of unease rising in his stomach. 

Heavy, even footsteps coming down the stairs. 

“Okay,” Foggy said slowly, having arrived in the kitchen. “You look like you’re waiting for a train to hit you.” 

“Foggy, I,” Matt licked his lips, trying to gather his words. “Did we—did I—um, did we—“ 

“Nothing sexual happened last night, other than the incredible foot massage I gave you,” Foggy informed Matt. “We were both a little drunk off of the Shandys, you more than me, you are a fucking lightweight and you always have been,” (and here, Foggy clapped Matt on the back in what was perhaps a little bit of an over the top bro-y gesture, but Matt chose to take it as reassuring instead) “but no,” Foggy continued, “we didn’t, you know, do anything. You were just getting snuggly on the couch and I walked you up to your bed, then I fell on your bed because I lost my footing trying to get you to lay down, and you mumbled ‘Just stay, your bed is far away’ and I took you at your word, and look, it’s not my fault I’m a needy sleeper, okay?” Foggy finished his sentence quickly and Matt could practically feel the pulsation of his heart rate rising.

Matt allowed himself a small smile. He heard Foggy take a deep breath.

“It’s a shame nothing did happen,” Foggy said lightly, “because you would have been much better off this morning after having experienced my incredible lovemaking prowess.” Foggy brushed some nonexistent dirt off of Matt’s shoulders. 

“Prowess that sent Marcie running to her tutee?” Matt teased. Foggy swatted him on the shoulder this time. 

“Fuck you, Murdock!” 

But Matt could hear Foggy smiling, and he felt the unease in his chest resolve somewhat. There was an easy silence between them for a few minutes while Foggy bustled around gathering the things he needed for the day. 

“I’ll meet you on campus,” Foggy told Matt, patting him on the shoulder on his way out the door, “and tonight we need to buy tickets home for the holidays.” 

“Bye, sweetie,” Matt called after Foggy in what he hoped was a passable sarcastic imitation of a 50s housewife. It was unnerving, however, how easily the endearment rolled off his tongue. 

________________

Foggy was grateful his first class was not with Matt that morning. It was like he needed detox from that man after being around the smell of his body wash too long, it was that fucking intoxicating. The first class of the day seemed to cure him of it, however, he argued heartily with three different classmates over the environmental law case and even got into it with his professor once everything was said and done. 

“Foggy, are you even listening to me right now?” Karen was saying, but her tone was light and easy. Foggy shook his head like he was trying to clear his ears of water he had picked up in the pool or some shit like that. 

“Sorry, Karen,” Foggy said, looking down at the environmental law case they were supposed to be working on together over their lunch break. “I have some case references here that I think will help,” he rifled through his book bag, he knew he had printed some off just yesterday, he knew it...

“How’s the couple’s study going?” Karen asked in a would-be casual voice. Foggy looked up at her, half dismayed, half relieved to see a knowing, mischievous grin playing across her face. 

“Please don’t make fun of me,” Foggy begged, burying his head in his hands. 

“Make fun of you for roping your one true love into a fake relationship situation where I’m confident absolutely nothing could go wrong?” Karen patted him on the back, and Foggy knew she meant well. “No, Fogs, I should be congratulating you. I should have done that with Claire ages ago.” 

“They’re probably still looking for participants in the study,” Foggy told her, a quip which earned him a swat on the shoulder. 

“I have a little more regard for my own life, thanks,” Karen told him, almost scolding. 

“I gave him a foot massage last night,” Foggy confessed. 

“Is that supposed to be innuendo for something?”

“No!” Foggy was indignant. “I would never! We were both drunk off that stupid Summer Shandy stash I bought at costco, and I would never, I’m not some stupid frat boy—“

“Says the former chapter president of Beta Theta Pi,” Karen interjected good-naturedly. 

“I said I’m not a stupid frat boy. Betas are the nice ones, everyone knows that.” 

“It’s not enough to just be nice, Fogs, everyone knows that too,” Karen told him. Foggy nodded.

“I know. And nothing happened. Really. But Matt is such a lightweight so I ended up helping him up the stairs to his bed and somehow I ended up spending the night there.” 

“You didn’t,” Karen was aghast. Foggy buried his face in his hands again. 

“I’m so embarrassed. So of course, Matty woke up the next morning thinking I had taken advantage but I assured him as best I could that I didn’t, but now I’m worried everything will be too weird, and fuck, Karen, this is already too much.” 

Karen was watching Foggy critically. “You’re taking him home for Thanksgiving?” She said finally.

“How did you know that?” Foggy was surprised.

“You and Matt have always spent Thanksgiving together in some capacity.” 

“I’ve never taken him home before.” 

“Not as your boyfriend, you haven’t.” 

“My family all knows Matt, they will never let me hear the end of any of this.” 

“You deserve it, you’ve been a lovestruck puppy all this time,” Karen teased. “Prepare yourself.” 

“I know,” Foggy moaned. “I know. We are booking plane tickets tonight.” 

“What’s the story going to be?” Karen leaned back in her chair, drinking deeply from her water bottle. Foggy hated her for how calm she was. 

“They don’t need a story,” Foggy told her. ‘They know I’ve been in love with Matt this whole damn time.” 

“They will need a story,” Karen informed him sternly. “They need to know when the two of you finally decided you were in love after all this time, after being roommates for so long. And it can’t be that you got drunk and made mistakes and then those mistakes turned out to be love.” 

___________

Matt considered Foggy’s question. 

“How about, we argued a mock case together successfully in class it was the hardest case we both had dealt with in a long while, and so we worked our asses off for weeks and weeks, then when we finally won it was such a moment of triumph that—“ Matt trailed off, unsure where to go from there. 

“The mock jury decided in our favor, and I kissed you in the heat of the moment,” Foggy suggested. 

Matt was briefly consumed by memories of mock cases that they had, in fact, won together, and wondered what that would have been like if Foggy actually had kissed him in the heat of the moment. 

“That sounds believable,” he said breezily. “Thanksgiving will be easy, Fogs, your family loves me.” Matt knew this to be true, of course, but he was nervous all the same. Foggy’s family had been so good to him for years and years and the last thing Matt wanted to do was put any of that in jeopardy by entering into something as fragile as a new relationship. 

Foggy finished tapping a few buttons on his computer. “Tickets are booked!” He announced to Matt, who grinned in Foggy’s general direction. 

“Can’t wait for it, sweet cheeks,” Matt put only somewhat sarcastic emphasis on the endearment, and was surprised when he felt Foggy’s lips brush against his cheek as his friend walked by to put his computer away. 

“Stick with sweetheart,” Foggy advised Matt, who only barely heard this admonition as he was too busy cataloguing the softness of Foggy’s lips against his still-stubbly cheeks


	6. The Holidays Cometh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was funny, Matt thought, the ability that Foggy had to cut through the noise without doing anything, just by the sheer fact of his existence. All of the scattered, frantic heartbeats that would usually be uncomfortably impinging on Matt’s senses at this moment, the intense menagerie of sound and smell that Matt’s weary mind was working so hard to process, all of it faded to a comfortable background din with Foggy next to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it’s summer for us, but forced relationship fics are much more fun at the holidays. XD 
> 
> Also, I have no idea how law school works. *spins hypnotic wheel* pay no attention to the most likely completely false details about law school! (Or let me know if you have personal experience. I do like hearing about that)
> 
> Please leave a comment and let me know what you think! Thank you for reading!!

“What do the two of you fight about?” The counselor was asking the question to Matt at their next session for the romantic couple’s study. Foggy watched Matt bite the inside of his cheek. Foggy began wracking his brain for something plausible to fight about. He and Matt didn’t get into it over that much, did they? 

“Well, when we’ve both passed the bar, we want to open our own practice,” Matt began. Foggy nodded. This much was true. “But we can’t ever seem to get on the same page about the types of cases that we want to take on once we are up and running.” 

“Matty over here has too much of a bleeding heart,” Foggy elbowed Matt gently in the ribs. 

“And Foggy only wants to bet on sure things,” Matt continued, quirking a little bit of a smile at Foggy’s touch. 

“I admire that you want to help the poor and downtrodden, but we can’t help every wrongly accused criminal that comes our way,” Foggy continued. 

“To which I say, what is the point of having a law degree if you can’t help people without the privileges that the legal system affords everyone but them?” Matt actually had a little bit of heat in his voice, something Foggy was surprised to hear in what was supposed to be a hypothetical argument. 

“It seems like this is a pretty fundamental conflict between what might be overly ambitious optimism on the part of Matt,” the relationship counselor inclined her head towards Matt, “and overly utilitarian realism on the part of Foggy,” she finished, nodding in Foggy’s direction. 

“That’s true,” Foggy said thoughtfully. “Matt did think that we could fix up a truly decrepit old lofted apartment and make it, and I quote, ‘hip with the kids’.” 

“The apartment that we now live in,” Matt countered. “You like it there!” 

“After we bought the best light-blocking curtains money could buy!” 

“The best ones Bed Bath and Beyond could buy after a 20% discount mailer card, you mean.” 

“I know you don’t mind the enormous, fluorescent billboard outside the living room window, but it gets to the rest of us,” Foggy harrumphed, and then immediately felt stupid for making the comment at all. It hung horribly on the air, and the relationship counselor opened her mouth to say something. 

“Not everybody understands the life of luxury that comes with being blind,” Matt said easily, breaking the silence. Foggy watched his face carefully, searching for signs of sincerity. Matt took Foggy’s hand in his own, still looking at the relationship counselor, but he rubbed his thumb up and down the top of Foggy’s hand, and Foggy took that to mean that his insensitive comment had been forgiven. 

“How do you handle these differences in your personality?” The counselor was back to business on the questionnaire, visibly glad that the awkward moment had passed between them. 

“Arguing constantly,” Matt grinned at Foggy. 

“Then lots of enthusiastic makeup sex,” Foggy said before he could stop himself. Then he bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood. But Matt was chuckling and patting Foggy’s thigh (the upper part of Foggy’s thigh, did he mention?) and the relationship counselor was smiling too and writing something down on her clipboard. 

“You seem very forgiving of one another,” she remarked. 

Matt leaned over and kissed Foggy on the cheek (Foggy knew this was for show, for verisimilitude, but he couldn’t help allowing his eyes to flutter shut at the sensation for just a brief moment). 

“He’s the love of my life,” Matt said lightly. “We have to make compromises, don’t we?” It took Foggy a beat to realize that this was where he was supposed to come in. 

“Yeah,” he said, his voice hitching slightly. He squeezed Matt’s hand. “We do.”   
________

The airport was crowded on the way to their flight home for Thanksgiving. Matt didn’t like crowded places. It made it too hard to pick out individual heart rates and breathing patterns, too hard to separate benign entities from threatening ones.   
Foggy’s arm slipped gently through Matt’s, and Matt involuntarily exhaled, releasing a great deal of tension now that Foggy was next to him.

“Traveling around the holidays is always the worst,” Foggy remarked, gently steering Matt in the direction of their gate. 

“Nervous to introduce me to the family?” Matt put on his best shit eating grin and faced Foggy, who leaned in and kissed Matt on the cheek, though it was really closer to the corner of Matt’s mouth that he landed. Matt did his best to avoid literally going completely agape, but there were some things he couldn’t completely control. 

“They find you as adorable as I do, this will be easy.” Foggy said something else, mostly to himself, but from what Matt could make out he was saying gate names under his breath, making sure they arrived at the correct one. 

The pair settled in a pair of seats next to the gate, still arm in arm. Matt would have usually let go of Foggy by now, but damn it all to hell, he was enjoying the physical nearness. Foggy wasn’t making any moves to unearth his arm from Matt’s; so Matt was not going to make him. 

It was funny, Matt thought, the ability that Foggy had to cut through the noise without doing anything, just by the sheer fact of his existence. All of the scattered, frantic heartbeats that would usually be uncomfortably impinging on Matt’s senses at this moment, the intense menagerie of sound and smell that Matt’s weary mind was working so hard to process, all of it faded to a comfortable background din with Foggy next to him. 

Sure, Matt was able to filter things on his own after a bit, it was a skill that had taken him years to learn after he lost his sight. But having Foggy nearby felt like cutting through a stormy ocean onboard a handsome ship instead of treading intensely choppy waters. Matt smiled, mostly to himself, and patted Foggy’s hand with his free arm. He felt Foggy hum happily at the touch, though not returning it. Foggy’s attention wasn’t completely on Matt and he wasn’t zoning out (Matt would have had to endure off-key humming of various Broadway shows if this was the case), so Matt deduced Foggy must have gotten out his kindle and was reading. 

“Are you still neck-deep in the His Errant Earl series?” Matt asked. He could almost feel Foggy’s body temperature rise at the impertinence of the question, though he could have been imagining that because it was the effect he wanted to have. 

“It’s not my fault that Scarlet Scott is a damn genius with a pen, Matty,” Foggy said in a holier-than-thou tone, “but if you must know, I’m reading a John Muir biography in an attempt to get more in to my environmental law class.” 

“You don’t need environmental law,” Matt scoffed. “We are going to be criminal lawyers.” 

“I need the credits,” Foggy sighed. “The class is boring and I need to find something interesting to hang on to.” 

“Nerd,” Matt said affectionately. 

“Meathead,” Foggy replied, his attention absorbing quickly back into his book.   
_


End file.
